Building The Poop Robot

TODAY’S BREW: Mocha Mint S’mores because I mixed them together. AS I AM A GENIUS.

By Julie

You may or may not have heard, but I’M EDITING FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER. The sequel to RUNNING HOME is a lengthy summabitch, and extremely involved, because I’m so deep and stuff. This leads me to sit for 12 hours at a time in front of my laptop, messing with it in a series of highlighting and scribbling and swearing processes that absolutely delight me.

Writers complain about editing all the time, and I get it. You can’t believe this word puke came from your previously-believed-to-be-at-least-averagely-intelligent brain. You have things to FIX. Stuff that should have worked, doesn’t, so now you have to change all this other stuff, and make sure it all works together like a bunch of gears you found at the junkyard. At first you just make this half-robot-half-poop thing that you throw your hands up and say “TA DA!!” at, then you realize that it’s going to fall apart any second, so you have to build it again. And again. All while convincing yourself that a Poop Robot is absolutely necessary and a good idea.

I’m here to tell you that even if your work is the suckiest thing on Suck Mountain, working on it IS a good idea. You thought it was a good idea to write it, (though this can apply to whatever artsy fartsy or non-artsy fartsy thing you do), so stand behind it. Don’t give up on it until the horse is so dead, kicking it hurts your foot more than anything.

NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF SHIT YOU’RE SLINGING, NO ONE HAS SLUNG SHIT QUITE THAT WAY BEFORE.

Remember that. Every idea was something that some dude thought up, just like you. There is no wrong way to perfect your art, whether that art is coal mining, writing, chicken training or parenting. The one thing YOU can do for your art is do it your way, and stand behind what your way is.

Until your way doesn’t work. Then, try a new way.

The point is, enjoy the learning process. Even if you SUCK at it, you’re still learning. You need to try to learn. Every mistake you make, every thing you do that isn’t quite right, is all part of growing. Enjoy it. The moment you stop enjoying it, is the moment you either think you know fucking everything, or the moment when you realize you’re doing the wrong thing after all. But don’t give up because you think you can’t do it. STOP if you think you don’t want to do it. That’s all part of trying, too.

Of course, in the next blog post I’ll probably tell you to stop trying and just fucking DO IT, like the militant bitch that I am. 🙂 Prepare.

Single Post Navigation

3 thoughts on “Building The Poop Robot”

I’m in the opposite position right now, where I’ve been revising a couple books for so long that I’m having trouble spewing forth new words. I’m two whole chapters / a whopping 2.5k words into my sequel, and it was an excruciating couple weeks. I want to go back to the comfort of having a shit robot to shape into something beautiful, and then I say, “NO! I LIKE TO WRITE! GO FORTH AND WRITE!”